Cemetery Gates
by ncfan
Summary: SUNA. I don't know what they'll tell you about me, but I think it's going to stop mattering very soon.


I own nothing.

* * *

There's a test they run on the unborn child, to figure out if it will be able to handle becoming a host for the demon. Your father didn't become Kazekage until I was in my second trimester with your sister, but he'd said even before then that Suna needed a new host. I ignored him; so many people say that Suna needs to get stronger without ever doing anything about it that I thought he was just blowing smoke. There was a war going on; I didn't have time to worry about that, and maybe I didn't watch him as closely as I should have.

And when they ran the test on Temari, it came up negative. When they ran it on Kankuro, it came up negative. I was relieved. I was complacent. I never thought that you would test positive, and even if you did, I didn't think your father would really…

Well, I guess I was wrong.

On you, the test was performed as soon as I knew I was pregnant. Six weeks. At six weeks, you had just stopped being nothing more than a cluster of cells in my womb, and you were still an embryo. At six weeks, you had just developed an organ that was recognizable as a heart, and that heart had just then begun to beat. You were less than an inch long. Can you believe that? You were less than an inch long when you tested positive for compatibility with the Shukaku. You were less than an inch long when that demon was sealed into your flesh and tied to your fate.

From that day, I knew my life was over.

Does that sound maudlin to you? It certainly sounded maudlin to your father. He kept insisting that I wouldn't die, that the sacrifice would not be needed. I don't know who he was trying to fool. I think that maybe he was trying to fool himself.

But I knew. Don't ask me how I knew. It's not like any woman had ever found herself in my position before. It's not like any woman that I know of ever had a demon sealed into her unborn child. However, the sealing of a demon into a host has always required a sacrifice of blood and chakra, and I was the nearest source of both. Over the months, up until this day, I was weakening, but even on that day, I knew. Your uncle, who I'm convinced feels the need to say something profound at least once a day, would say that I had a "premonition", or that I had a "moment of foresight." Me, I just felt death in my bones. I felt as though someone had stepped over my grave.

You, my little one, are so small. That is the consequence of the demon's sealing; I gave birth to you far too soon, you see. You are so small, that you fit in my hands. You are less child than doll, as you are now, and yet I can feel life pulsing beneath your skin. I name you Gaara. Odd, I know, but I just came up with it now, and everyone already thinks I have the strangest taste in names. Your father won't dare to change it, after I'm dead. He's not a superstitious man, but even he knows stories of old patriarchs who were cursed because they didn't respect the dying wishes of their wives.

I name you Gaara, because your life will be hard. Your life will have little joy in it. You will spend your days and nights awake, looking out at a world that's been denied to you. You will need all the love and protection you can get, and I only wish that it could be from me.

My little one, I've no doubt that you will be told none of this. No one will tell you how small you were when you were born, that you could fit in my hands and that you came into the world without a sound, without a cry—that you were a docile, silent baby. No one will tell you why I named you the way I did (I told no one, anyways), no one will tell you that I wanted to protect you, and no one will tell you that I smiled at you as you died.

I can not tell you the future, but I can tell you what I think is in it. I think that they will tell you that you were born in your mother's blood (the truth, but not your fault), and that you were a weapon from the moment you were born, set apart from the rest of humanity (Only half of the truth). I think that some might tell you that you were a monster at birth (An utter lie).

I do not know what they will tell you of me. I do not like to think of what they will tell you of me, or my decision to go along with all of this. I suspect that, given time, my role will be forgotten. I will be made passive, and then erased. I will be forgotten altogether in this whole sorry affair, except that I was the sacrifice, I was the mother who abandoned her children to join death. No one will care why; they will just condemn.

All I can say is that I agreed to this because I was the same as your father: unwilling to ask this of someone else, unwilling to ask it of someone else's child. I'd have rather we just not go through with it at all, but if he couldn't be dissuaded from it, I couldn't just ask another woman to take my place. Do you understand the implications of that, Gaara? Do you understand how monstrous it is to ask another to die in your place? No? Well I think you will, given time.

I don't think you'll have much reason to love me in the years to come. I'm not sure how I feel about that. What use do the dead have with love? None at all. But why shouldn't I _want _you to love me? Why shouldn't I want the child of my flesh to love me as his mother? Oh well. It's going to stop mattering, very soon.

Love your siblings. Your brother is lively, your sister beautiful, both kind when treated kindly, and in a way, they've got it as bad as you do. Love your uncle. He'll need it. Try not to hate your father. He made you, yes, but hating him won't take it back, and hating him will do nothing but hurt you.

And if I could tell you one thing about myself, my little one, I would like for you to have known this: I would not ask you to be a sacrifice.


End file.
